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- Procter & Gamble warned that there are more price hikes coming in the next few months.
- Items like Tide detergent and personal healthcare products will get more expensive, P&G said.
- Companies are seeing rising costs of their own, leading them to raise prices for household goods.
Prices of everyday items are going to continue rising in 2022.
Procter & Gamble will increase prices for fabric care products and personal healthcare items this year, the company announced during a conference call Wednesday following its second-quarter earnings report. The latest price hikes follow increases across all of P&G’s other categories in the last year.
P&G said that it had already raised prices for liquid and powder detergents and, beginning February 28, will increase costs in the rest of its fabric care portfolio — this includes laundry pods, scent beads, fabric softeners, and dryer sheets from brands like Tide, Gain, Downy, and Bounce.
The company also alerted retailers Tuesday that price hikes are coming in mid-April on “certain personal healthcare brands in the US,” also it didn’t specify during the call which of its brands would be affected.
“The degree and timing of these moves are very specific to the category brand, and sometimes the product-form within a brand,” CFO Andre Schulten said on the call. “This is not a one-size-fits-all approach.”
But the price increases, which P&G attributes to increased commodity and freight costs, were good for the company’s bottom line: earnings and revenue for the quarter beat analysts’ expectations, proving that consumers were willing to overlook rising costs of essential products like Crest toothpaste and Gillette razors.
Other consumers goods giants — including Nestle, Danone, and Unilever — have warned in recent months that prices would continue to rise amid the highest levels of inflation in decades. The price of everything from coffee to skincare products has gone up, and Schulten warned in October that the price spikes are expected to continue through the first half of 2022, at least for P&G.
As Insider’s Dominick Reuter reported, these price hikes are possible because most major conglomerates are doing them, making it impossible for customers to find other, lower-cost choices.
Still, there are some promising signs that the economic picture is improving, Insider’s Ben Winck reported Wednesday: Consumer demand has recently slowed, and fractured supply chains are gradually beginning to heal. As we get further into 2022, prices may start returning to regular levels, too.
